Today, after just getting back from a lovely weekend in DC, where the weather’s not much warmer than here but warmer enough, and where the sun was sunning, and the flowering trees flowering (my favorite thing in the world)…
… AND with us having crossed that oh-so-certain but sometimes oh-so-far-away line that is March 21, I cannot help but endorse: Spring.
As if we have a choice, right? It’s not like you can choose Spring, so I don’t know that I can technically endorse it, but wow, I’m so ready I don’t even care. Our weekend in DC really got me in the mood – warm weather, birds chirping, daffodils, crocuses, tulips, farmer’s markets and flower stores, heavy coats and scarves left in the back of the car… man oh man, Mac even got a sunburn on the back of his neck Sunday afternoon! Here are some pictures from our completely lovely time at Frager’s Garden Center (those in DC should check it out, if you haven’t already) minus – don’t worry – any kind of photo documenting of the back of Mac’s neck:
Oooooh, you want it, don’t you? It’s sooo pretty. Right down the street from your house, don’t you want it?? Colors! More than just “dead grass green” and “dirty white” and “really dirty white”! Pink! Red! Blue! And that’s just the watering cans!!! Oooh, you can just taste it now, can’t you? Your mouth is watering now, isn’t it? Well, that’s weird of you, because you can’t eat watering cans.
At any rate, back here at home, crossing from March 20 to March 21 means that the days are now longer than the nights, and that we will, for the first time since we moved here in October, get sunlight in our north-facing windows (which far out number our other-ways-facing windows). Once it stops being so cloudy, the cats are going to love it. Cloudy and cold. And rainy. Once it starts actually feeling like Spring…
Here in the Midwest we know to be patient, and we know not to let little set-backs take our eyes off the prize of a yard full of daisies and falling asleep on a picnic blanket while reading a book out by the lake… technically, snowstorms are totally fair game through about the end of April, and technically, we’re not supposed to complain, because that’s what we signed up for when we move to the Midwest (or never moved away).
So I guess if I’m actually endorsing anything endorsable today, it would be hanging in there, though it’s 48 and raining right now, though even next week’s weather forecast – next week where we finally get to see April – only has highs in the low 40’s. Soon enough, soon enough, we’ll be dancing our way through our first farmer’s markets of the season, right here in Chicago, drinking our first iced lattes – outside with no gloves on – and popping our first allergy pills, but not minding one bit. Hang in there, everyone. The flowers are peeking up out of the ground already – grab your umbrella, your parka, and maybe your snow shovel, and see if I’m not right. Soon enough.
For the record, I am secondarily, but still very enthusiastically, endorsing “Frager’s Hardware,” “planting a flowering tree,” and “taking a vacation to a place you love to visit people you love where you’ve all got enough fun, free time to wander around together through a gardening store, reminiscing about all your favorite flowers-coming-up memories.” And allergy pills, I’m also endorsing allergy pills.
More news of our DC trip will be sprinkled throughout this week’s posts, I’m sure… we took a boatload of pictures, as would be expected. For the record, “Spring” and all things associated just barely won out today over the very strong candidate, “having your good friend Megan Woods bake your wedding cake.” Intrigued? That just might pop up on Wednesday… stay tuned.
I don’t even know if that’s how you spell “vaycay,” since that word’s intentionally not part of my normal vocabulary, but it seemed somehow appropriate tonight… the deal is, Chicago Thursday is taking a personal day and not showing up for this week, since our impending trip to a different city, Washington DC, has me too busy to write anything. You try preemptively thinking of everything two cats might destroy in three days and then getting to it before they do!
Mac’s out of town, in DC on business, and I’m going to be joining him on Friday for some weekend fun with family and friends, but until then, in order to fill the gaping hole in my life, I’m posting not one but TWO Wednesday Bites. ;)
Also, our lives are really saturated with good food… and really, one food focused post a week is just not enough.
So here we go:
Yesterday was St. Patty’s day, which means green beer, a green river, and that tastiest of Irish delicacies, corned beef. Once again this year, Mac has undertaken the feat of cooking a giant, fatty slab of meat, and for some reason, we decided to photo document it. Yep, that’s right… twenty full color pictures of a big slab of raw meat… in a poorly lit kitchen to boot. Perhaps we let our anticipation and general excitement about the day get in the way of our judgement about foods that do and do not make for good photo documentary subjects… but in the spirit of the day, and of food that tastes better than it looks, we’re posting it anyway. Vegetarians and vegans, beware…
Yep, that’s a big hunk o’ meat. It was, of course, totally delicious. Totally. Can’t wait til next year.
Also, as a complete aside, the boys are intensely weirded out by Mac being gone. Rohn hasn’t been more than an inch and a half from my side all day, and Amarok has been lying alone in the dark in the bedroom for hours now, like there’s nothing worth living for anymore, except fish flakes, he did come out for fish flakes… sheesh, good thing we don’t let the boys write for Wednesday Bites…
Book club this week, and once again, new experiences in deliciousness were had by all… and, if you act now, you can experience it too for the low, low price of half off.
Anyway, there are a million delicious restaurants in Lakeview, at least a hundred thousand of which are sushi bars, but book club includes people from all around the city, and tonight’s sushi extravaganza had us out in Ravenswood, just off the Damen brown line stop at Grand Katachi, 4747 N. Damen. They’ve got a wide and delicious range of sushi options, and for a while longer (not sure how long), pretty much everything on the menu is half off. Yeah. Like, everything except the Pepsi. And who wants Pepsi anyway? It’s BYOB! Six of us stuffed ourselves silly with Maki Rolls, California Rolls, Dragon Rolls, Spider Rolls, Manhattan Rolls, Chicago Rolls, and more wasabi than my tummy knows how to handle for $76 TOTAL, tax/tip included. Wow!
Their website doesn’t really exist yet, but there’s a nice picture of the front of the restaurant, along with some reviews, on yelp.
So, Chicago buddies, go get yourselves some delicious sushi for a really good price. Do it do it do it do it. :)
Here’s a little video with a bunch of random clips I shot today with our new Canon Vixia HG20. There’s nothing special here, I was just trying to get an idea for how the camera performs under different conditions. Enjoy!
After MANY hours of research, we landed on the camera you see above: the Canon Vixia HG-20. It’s just about the best consumer class full HD camcorder available on the current market. This thing has a small army of features that should impress even the snobbiest of video aficionados. Aside from the ability to shoot in full and glorious 1920×1080 HD, it can do so in any number of different modes, including 24p, 30p and 60i — there’s also and optional “cinemode” for rich mid-tones and a more cinematic feel. Apparently while there’s no explicit macro mode, this camera nonetheless has an natural ability to take breath-taking macro footage. It’s amazing Optical Image Stabilization feature utilizes some new technology and manages to work miracles making the shakiest of shots look like it they were taken from a tripod. From a tech geek perspective, the number one thing that I like about this camera is that it’s implementation AVCHD (the controversional, compressed HD video format) can record at 24Mbit/s instead of the standard 13 Mbit/s. That’s a huge quality gain. Without getting into too many more details, let the following video suffice as evidence of the camera’s solid performance and quality.
Yes, the Canon Vixia HG-20 can make even a stupid video of a squirrel look impressive.
Tragedy struck at the Merriweather yesterday evening as Mac was preparing not just pictures, but a video, for the Monday endorsement, which was to be of “throwing wet noodles on the wall for your cats to jump at.” Things were going along very happily until Rohn, in a moment of wet noodle fervor and zeal, accidentally attacked Mac’s hand instead of the noodles themselves, rendering Mac both in pain and disinclined to endorse an activity he now saw as potentially dangerous.
Shoot.
What, I'm picking out a book.
I didn’t get home from work until after midnight, and now here we are, Tuesday morning, with nothing to endorse but safety first: no need to sacrifice your own personal well-being for the sake of the blog, no, not even for the sake of the blog…
While watching “Top Ten Natural Wonders of the World” on the Travel Channel tonight (though I’ve seen it so many times it’s almost not interesting… Everest is still getting taller, you can see the Great Barrier Reef from space, Lake Baikal contains 1/5 of all the world’s fresh water, blah blah blah), I was also flipping through the latest informational magazine from our insurance company… I know, right? Because God forbid I not multi-task…
Anyway, among articles like “What’s New in Colorectal Cancer Research?” and “Chlamydia on the Rise,” one article in particular caught my eye: “Older Adults Have Found the Fountain of Youth.” It’s an article about a recent study done of 100 centenarians in the US. When asked about factors that contributed to their longevity, many of these 100-plus-ers cited, not too surprisingly, things like staying close to family, keeping mentally active, and having a good sense of humor. More interestingly, researchers also found out that those in the 100+ crowd are actually pretty up on technology… not only do 12% generically “surf the web,” but 3% use online dating services… yeah, so if there are 84,000 centenarians in the US, and this study (however limited) reveals 3% of them to be using online dating services, that would mean there are about 2,520 people over they age of 100 using online dating services. Hey, if it’s ok to look, it’s ok to look.
I find this fascinating, and it made me wonder: do you think there are any centenarian bloggers out there? Any centenarian bloggers that blog about their online dating experiences? That would be an interesting read!
If you thought I was being over-dramatic in our last Chicago Thursday post, particularly when I evoked childhood artistic inspiration to decry the renaming of an icon of our city (and our country, and our hemisphere and, you know, architecture everywhere), then you should have seen the cover of the Red Eye on Friday:
One of the Willis guys was reportedly surprised by the uproar, saying he thought people should be happy they were brining business and money to Chicago, instead of letting this theoretically beloved icon sit with so much empty, ignored space. Another person pointed out that everyone morning the loss of the “Sears” Tower probably isn’t actually willing to throw their consumer/purchasing power into rebuilding the Sears Empire so they can move back into their namesake tower, clinching the name for good. And I know, I know, I think we all know that this is the way things go, and no one, as far as I know, is planning any kind of large scale protest to tell the Willises to go back to their side of the pond…
I was talking to a friend of mine Friday night and brought up the fact that this is going to be one of those things we tell our kids, like “I remember back when this building here was called the Sears Tower. Did you know that? I remember when they changed the name!”
To which our kids will respond, “oh my god, you are so old!”
My friend’s response, as he shook his head, summed it all up:
